


Two worlds full of the mistakes of three brothers

by atzmatter



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Earth 2 - Freeform, I Honestly Have No Idea How To Explain This, Sad, crime syndicate, i legit just wrote shit honestly, justice league - Freeform, mitch and chris are actually dick's brothers but i think only cinematically, original origins, original stories kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7424041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atzmatter/pseuds/atzmatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have no damn idea okay? Read the tags because I probably explained it better there than I could here. </p><p>// Clearly I don't own anything of DC Comics, we all know this.//</p><p>//btw, in this, Mitch is six years older than Dick and Chris is four years older than Dick. ok bye//</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two worlds full of the mistakes of three brothers

“ Hey Chris, Dick! Great performance little bros.” Mitch swung his arms around his little brothers, bringing them into a group hug. Dick smiled when Mitch took him into his arms and started carrying him around. The three walked through the circus, waving and greeting the different people and acts of Haly’s Circus.  
When they entered their family’s little home in the area of the main circus, they all got changed from their _Flying Graysons_ costumes. After a while, Mitch and Chris left the trailer house, leaving Dick to his own devices.  
By around twelve at night, Dick, including most of the circus were asleep. All but Mitch and Chris.  
“ Mitch, how did you get it?” Chris whispered, following after Mitch in the darkness of the outside’s night towards the main circus area. “ Stole it from Uncle George.” Mitch replied, giggling. In his hand swished a bottle of rum, indeed stolen from their crook of an uncle.  
When they made it to the trapeze performing area, Mitch cracked open the bottle and smelled the opening; gagging at the smell. Alcohol never smelled good.  
“ If it’s gross, why are we gonna drink it?” Chris asked, sitting cross legged in front of Mitch. The older sat down as well, smelling the opening again.  
“ Eh, it smells gross, no lie. But it tastes pretty good. Plus, we’re celebrating and what better way to celebrate than with some good old rum?” Mitch smiled cheekily at his brother. Chris hesitantly gave in and smiled back, nodding.  
It was reluctant at first, but Mitch took a swing of the rum, gulping a bit down. After the bottle left his lips, he sighed happily. “ See? Tastes great.” Mitch held out the bottle to Chris, gesturing to take it. “ Here.”  
Chris took it from his hands, looking uneasily at the bottle. He looked back up at Mitch from some kind of permission. The other smiled and nodded. Chris brought the bottle to mouth and gulped down one swing. He gagged slightly because of his gag reflex but successfully didn’t throw up.  
Though, it didn’t take long for the taste to just start going away and the buzz to start setting in.  
Half an hour passed and the two brothers were already more drunk than children their age ever should be. The bottle was empty so Mitch absent mindedly let it fall to the ground, dragging Chris to the ladder that led to the top of the trapeze lines.  
As they reached the top, Mitch being taller than the other grabbed hold of the trapeze bar and handed it to Chris. The younger grasped drunkenly onto the metal bar, losing his balance every so often. Even in his overly tipsy state, Chris was uneasy about trapezing in the dark, only slightly illuminated by the moon; especially with the state of mind they were in.  
Mitch had none of it, though. He believed his family were fearless and bold. And by god, his brother would be so as well.  
So he pushed Chris off.  
Chris was panicked at the loss of footing and ground at first but let the hours of practicing and instinct take over. He swung to the other side and out of pure adrenaline, jumped to the closest high stand. His feet unsteadily hit the wood but he stayed on by clutching the column the stand was connected to.  
“ Yeah! You go Chris!” Mitch cheerfully slurred from the other side. His claps echoed through the large tent.  
Chris’ smiled beamed and he pumped his fists into the air, jumping up and down. They could only see each other slightly by the the moon’s light but it was clear that even in the added blurry eyes that they were feeling accomplished.  
“ Yeah! I did it! I did i-” Was all Mitch heard as he watched Chris stumble off the wooden stand and start plummeting to the ground, his youthful screaming shaking the older’s spine.  
Out of panic, he dived down, reaching his little brother and holding onto him. Even in a state of stupidity, he knew they were not going to make it.  
The sound of bodies hitting the ground of the circus tent resounded through the area. Mitch’s back hit the ground first, his arms reflexively still holding onto Chris as he neck broke, killing him instantly.  
He broke Chris’s fall.  
Chris’ eyes were still pressed closed as he awaited impact; which never came. Slowly, he opened his eyes to be met with his older brother’s… lifeless face. Eyes bloodshot from the drinking, blood leaking out of his mouth. Chris was horrified as he sat up, quickly sobering up. He saw a pool of blood start to pour from behind Mitch’s neck and back.  
After moments of realization of what had just happened, Chris sprang backwards off of Mitch’s corpse.  
“ No… NO! Oh GOD!” Chris was hyperventilating. There was his brother’s dead body while his was still flowing. Wasn’t he supposed to die too? He didn’t understand why Mitch used his body as guard. He knew he wouldn’t survive the fall if he did that.  
It took minutes of pure silence and shock to soak in before Christopher felt warm tears slide down his cheeks. In the state of fragility that he was in, he crawled back to his brother’s body and laid his arms and head on him, trying his best to hug him.  
“ I-I’m sorry big brother. You didn’t h-have to do that.” He started to sob uncontrollably. “ Why did you do it?! Why did you save me?!”  
“ Chris?”  
Oh… oh no.  
Chris knew that voice and couldn’t have thought of a more worse time to hear it. Dick stood meters away from the two so, hopefully he couldn’t see their big brother’s body. He must’ve followed them…  
Chris hated to let go but he got up and ran towards Dick and engulfed him in a hug, letting his tears soak into Dick’s pajama shirt.  
“ Chris? What’s wrong with Mitch? Is he okay?” Dick innocently asked, all of his questions being ignored by Chris’ evergrowing cries. Chris picked Dick up and starting jogging out of the tent to the trailers.  
“ Mitch’s alright, okay? We just need to go get mommy and daddy.” Chris said his voice trembling. Dick could tell something was wrong, but he trusted his brother’s words. The younger one held onto Chris’ black Rolling Stones tee, listening to his ragged breathing the whole way back to their house.  
Chris put Dick down on the carpet ground when they got into the trailer, the older turning on the lights and running to their parent’s rooms. Once again, Dick was left there.  
“ Mama, Papa!” Chris exclaimed, tears once again erupting. His mother and father woke up instantly, turning on their lamps to be met with their son’s terrified and heart breaking expression.  
Mary was the first to get up and go to her son. She held him as he continued to cry.  
“ Darling child, what’s wrong? What has you so upset?” Mary asked, comforting Chris by petting his dark hair. Chris was hyperventilating again, this time even more because he knew he was going to be hated forever. Sent to jail for it even. He knew it. No doubt in his mind interfered with what he already had in his head-  
Chris stumbled on his words.  
“ I k-killed him, mama.”  
Mary and John Grayson were taken aback by their child’s confession. They didn’t know who he meant. For all they knew, he could’ve just been getting upset about one of the circus animals dying and blamed himself. Chris had a tendency to blame himself quite a lot, just out of habit.  
John asked first. “ Who?”  
Chris hiccuped. “ M-Mitchell.”  
Mary and John turned ghastly pale at the thought of it. They wanted to think that Chris was just joking and that Mitch was just getting him to play a sick prank on them. But by the way Chris looked so fragile and horror-struck, they weren’t sure.  
“ Where… Where is Mitchell, darling?” Mary asked.  
Chris pointed to the direction of the tent through the walls of their tiny house. “ In the main area!” He slurred slightly catching his parents off guard once more. Perhaps Chris wasn’t as sober as he thought. Out of suspicion, Mary moved in closer into Chris’ space, inhaling the strong smell of rum. She gasped and grasped Chris shoulders.  
“ Christopher Grayson! Who gave you that alcohol?!” She exclaimed.  
“ Mitchell! We drank Uncle George’s alcohol… before we went on the trapeze.”  
The two parents were utterly terrified at that moment, too many of the things Chris had been saying starting to fall into place.  
Mary, John and Chris all went to the trapeze area after turning the lights on in the tent. Only meters away from them laid their eldest son’s bloodied body, directly under the netless field of the trapezes.  
They reacted the way any parents would have; breaking down, holding their son, crying, asking the god or gods they believed in, _How could you take one of our children?_  
The dark night was awake with the circus folk and police. Chris told them what happened and they believed a young child as himself was not in the wrong. He himself believed otherwise. It was all his fault.  
Life went on badly for him after the incident; Chris and Dick grew up to the ages of twelve and eight years old when Chris took his life. In a depressed haze of drunken memories of every mistake he’d made in his life up to that point flooded his unstable mind.  
He hung himself in his room, his body being found only the next morning when his little brother had gone into there to wake him up with a big hug. Because while Chris mind’s told him otherwise, everyone forgave him for his mistake, especially his family.  
It simply wasn’t enough to bring back his big brother.

 

Nightwing’s costume was already slightly shredded as his knees hit the ground, blood leaking from his bit lip and nose. Bruises covered him, all inflicted by the two men in front of him.  
The Justice League were on their mission in Earth 2 to help that universe’s Lex Luthor defeat the Crime Syndicate. Superman fought Ultraman, Batman fought Owlman, Wonder Woman fought Superwoman. All were engaged in their own fights for their sides, while Nightwing found himself fighting his way into a secluded part of the Crime Syndicate’s headquarters with two men. The tallest one, Renegade. The slightly shorter one, Talon.  
“ Does it hurt, hero?” Renegade mocked, a shit eating grin gracing his lips. Talon looked nothing like the Talon from Nightwing’s universe which led him to believe he was most probably not an opposite but more of a similar being.  
Nightwing still smirked through the pain he was in, his hand clenching his stomach and the ribs he knew were broken. If he’d make it out alive, the first destination would be the Batcave’s emergency medical wing.  
“ You wish.” He spat blood at their feet.  
“ You do realize you’re the one bleeding here? You should really get rid of that look on your face. You’re not getting out of this place alive, buddy.” Talon remarked, striding up to Nightwing’s weak body, catching him by the collar of his suit and holding him up. The hero struggled to breathe at first but pulled through.  
“ I may not get out alive but I’m not dying at your hands.” Nightwing would admit the punch he tried to throw at the other was already a fail, even before Talon grabbed his wrist.  
“ Oh, but you are.” Talon smiled deviously. “To make killing you so much more satisfying though, we want to see your face under the mask. To see your face scream in pain as you die. The last thing you’ll see is us, the last thing you’ll know is how much of a failure you are, and the last thing you’ll feel is the slit at your throat.” He threatened rather effectively because even Nightwing being the smug extrovert he is, he knew from the day Jason died that death in their line of work was always possible.  
He just didn’t like that it was.  
“ Try me, bitch.” Nightwing sneered, his teeth bloody.  
Talon slapped him, which to the hero was the least of the pain.  
“ Shut it.” He said before bringing his hand back up to Nightwing’s face.  
He tore off the black, scratched up mask, throwing it to the floor.  
Talon’s eyes widened behind his mask, memories swarming his head. The memories of his little brother before the he had fallen to his death by Tony Zucco and his taste for vengeance. The foe he held up looked exactly like him and for a moment, out of pure absurdity considered the fact that the hero came from another universe; a universe in which maybe his little brother didn’t die.  
Renegade noticed his partner’s hesitation and sauntered towards the two, clearly confused at the sudden change of the room’s mood.  
“ What the hell are you waiting for?” Renegade barked at him before laying eyes on Nightwing. He was stunned.  
No. Not Nightwing.  
“ Dick…?”  
Dick coughed out, keeping his tired eyes on the two. “ How do you know my name?”  
That was all the confirmation they needed.  
They knew. Yes, this was an adult version of their brother but every single one of them had the Grayson family’s eyes; bright blue with a tint of grey and mix of brown around the pupil. It was unmistakeable. They just knew. Talon’s grip faltered and he let go of Dick’s collar, allowing the other to fall to the floor once again.  
Dick was overly confused and had utterly no idea what was wrong those two all of sudden.  
First they draw him into a remote place, attack him, have him the brink of death and then just… The let their guards down.  
Don’t get Dick wrong, he had every chance to either attack them or run, but with a broken left shin both seemed impossible. All he could do was just lay there, watching the two stare at him with shock, and then look at each other for a second.  
Talon bent down, knowing that Dick was in too much pain to fight back. He picked him up and sprinted with Renegade to another place.  
Now Dick was beyond confused. Baffled, bewildered more than not.  
In minutes, they entered a well lit room full of heart monitors and operating tables. He deduced quickly that it was a medical bay. As he spotted sharp objects used for surgery were strewn about, he also deduced that they were most probably going to kill him with those.  
“ Renegade, hook him up to life support.” Was the last thing he heard before drifting off. 

 

When Dick came back to, he was laying on the same bed as he had been when the two strange villains brought him to the medical bay. His eyes fluttered, trying to get used to the light. He felt oddly way better than he had when he was bleeding his lungs out earlier.  
“ You feeling alright?” A voice came from next to him. On reflex, Dick sprung out of the bed and onto the floor in fighting stance. Talon and Renegade were both just standing there, watching him.  
“ I’ll take that as a yes.” Talon remarked.  
“ What did you do to me?” Dick demanded.  
“ Saved you. You were on the edge of death.” Renegade answered.  
“ Oh yeah? But isn't that what you two wanted? Me, dead?” He responded, his fists clenching. Talon and Renegade both started to look guilty which only made Dick feel more uncomfortable. Talon spoke again, “ That was our objective at first. But…”  
A strong, heavy silence spread through the air.  
“ But we couldn’t let you die.”  
They removed their masks.  
“ Not again.” Renegade added.  
Dick was smacked with shock as he easily recognized them, his stomach churning and the feeling of his heart dropping.  
“ Dear god… Chris? Mitch?”  
“ Little brother.” Mitch smiled, Chris doing the same.  
The sound of an explosion and the shaking of the floor echoed through the headquarters, cutting off anything any of them were going to say. Dick thought that someone had just left off a bomb, while Chris and Mitch knew what the explosion meant as he fitted their masks back on. They walked over to Dick quickly, enveloping him in a hug.  
“ We don’t know what your universe has had in store for us but… No matter where you’re from, we love you, okay?” Chris said into Dick’s shoulder.  
Dick was still in shock when he nodded, hugging them back.  
After a few minutes, the two pulled away from him, Talon handing him back his mask. Renegade placed his hands on Dick’s shoulders, staring him straight in the eyes.  
“ Goodbye once more, Richard…” He leaned in, placing a kiss on his brother’s forehead before tugging Talon with him and the two disappearing out the door.  
That was it, huh? After years of being utterly alone, he sees both of his brothers for the first time in sixteen years and they simply leave again?  
Nightwing was so caught up in his thoughts he didn’t notice some of the Justice Leaguers come into the room and being glad to have found him, one of them being Batman; even if he didn’t show it.  
Nightwing also apparently didn’t notice Batman asking him if he was alright. It was only then did he see the bandages on his legs, torso and arms; along with the bandages on his lips and nose.  
He nodded to stop Batman from asking any further questions about it.  
“ Who did you fight with?” The older one questioned.  
Nightwing hesitated but then smiled sadly.  
“ My brothers.”  
Before Batman could even ask what he meant, he walked out of the room, joining the rest of the League in the main space of the headquarters.


End file.
